Bands that changed my life part 4 (in no particular order): Pink Floyd. I’m going to paraphrase a review of the World According to Garp here, because it’s so apt: "Like all great works of art, Floyd’s albums seems always to have been there, diamonds sleeping in the dark, chipped out at last for our enrichment and delight ...”. Floyd is huge for me, they would absolutely have to occupy 3 places in my Desert Island discs, “The Wall”, “Wish You Were Here” and “The Dark Side”.

 

Even though the Wall came out in ’79, it’s hard to believe a world without that album existed before then. I started listening to it at 10, but I listened only to that album. Rather than exploring their back catalogue, I just listened to the Wall a thousand times over the next few years instead. And then one day in Hermanus on a family holiday, aged 16 or so, I was glazing from lack of tunage so I sat in my dad’s car and engaged the Bose system in high gear. Dave or Gav had left a tape of the Dark Side in the car and lacking alternatives I thought “Let me branch out a little. How bad can it be?” Boom! I really, really should have tried it sooner.

 

It’s the perfect album – you can’t take away or add anything to it, it exists exactly as is, perfectly. The Dark Side of the Moon is like an egg. Everything which is supposed to be inside the shell is in there. 

 

There are 2 Floyd’s for me – the big 3 albums which I’ve mentioned, as well as “Animals”, “Obscured” and so on, and the psychedelic Floyd – “Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, “Meddle’, “Relics” etc. Both are amazing, but I’ll mention the latter again and the varsity years when I get to King Crimson.

 

Quick aside 1: I was under-age to watch the movie of The Wall when it came out in theatres. I remember writing a 2 page document outlining every reason my mom would have for me not seeing it, and rebutting every such argument with my own (extremely valid) counter as to why I should. When I ran her through the proposal, she still said no. Saw it on video a few months later. I still hold that against her! 

 

Quick aside 2: for me the band is the band only up until The Final Cut (not inclusive). After that, there is still great music from both the Waters and Gilmour camps, but they aren’t Floyd. A frriend calls them dehydrated Floyd - no Waters added hehehe. And The Dark Side was a life-changer because I knew Floyd already for years before I knew this album – it’s a reminder to me always to try to be open and receptive, not to get stuck.

 

And Wish You Were Here? I just listened to it on the way into town, and 47 years after it came out, it's still blowing my mind! Ah man, Pink Floyd, I love you guys.

 

And always will.